


The Walrus and the Carpenter

by HarveyWallbanger



Series: Buttons and Bows [4]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Canonical Character Death, Casual Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:51:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12101100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: "That was mean!" Alice said indignantly. "Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus.""But he ate as many as he could get," said Tweedledum.This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, "Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—"





	The Walrus and the Carpenter

**Author's Note:**

> The long-awaited finale to "Buttons and Bows"! Well, long-awaited by me, anyway.  
> The title of this story is, of course, that of the Lewis Carroll work, and I just took the summary wholesale from Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.  
> While the business between Alice and Jervis is non-explicit, please be aware that it forms a major part of the narrative, and is, perhaps, even more awful for being filtered through his rosy-tinted recollections and horrifying emotions. If such things are likely to bother you, Dear Reader, please don't read this story.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

You’re tired, now, so it doesn’t come so easily. What most don’t know, is that rhyme doesn’t just flow. Glad or sad, placid or mad, there is a calculated rhythm to be had. But now that Morpheus holds sway, it’s time to put away the play of the day. It’s a troubled sleep that Jervis prepares to settle into. It’s not unpleasant, he must admit, being free- lying with soft, solid bodies- on a clean and well-feathered bed. He’s not in the middle, though. Not in the place of privilege and warmth. There lies Nathaniel, sleeping like a beast tired of drawing blood. One heavy arm across Jervis. One across Jim Gordon.  
He should be happy. He should go to sleep weighted down with nothing more than the spell of satisfaction. A good time has been had by all. Was he not, for a moment, happy? You’d be lying if you said that you hadn’t been curious. Lies are a luxury that you don’t have. You can’t step into another’s mind if you don’t know your own. Yes. You wanted this. You had imagined what it would be like. Even back at Jim’s apartment, the very first time you met, watching him dump whiskey into his tea, eyelids like dirty paper and a bitter frown, you’d wondered. What his body would feel like against yours. If he were truly that angry all the time. Sex is everywhere. It drips onto everything. Even if you aren’t looking for it, it’ll stick to you.  
It had only been polite to give them a moment. Nathaniel had been breathing like a bull, but looking at you with a completely human question in his eyes. Jim had disappeared into the bathroom. When he’d returned, you stood. You’d been aware, not for the first time, of how much closer he was to Nathaniel’s height than your own. “Let us not waste the opportunity to taste,” you’d said, smiling your most brilliant smile, the one that you give the crowd.  
“Shut the fuck up,” Jim had said, with unnecessary venom, you’d thought. You’d looked at Nathaniel, but he was now as blank as the night air. No expression on his face, he’d merely watched, as Jim had fisted your hair, yanked back your head, making you cry out. It was in surprise as much as pain. Somehow, Jim had known what you’d become used to, and given it to you. The problem was this: how was Jim to know what was your bliss? How did he guess? What you’d like best. Nathaniel hadn’t told him. He’d remained silent, as Jim had touched you. As only Nathaniel had been allowed to. Up until then. You looked again. Nathaniel’s face betrayed nothing. You could have been alone there. You and Jim. Together.  
“When last we met,” you say, feeling yourself sweat, “there may have been cause for regret...”  
He slaps you. You gasp. You look at Nathaniel. You see nothing.  
Jim kisses you. After the flash and shock of pain, it’s sweet. He can’t help himself, you suddenly realize. The two impulses coexist in him. How he must hate either the one or the other. Or, perhaps, sometimes, both of them. How did you not see this before? A man can’t help what he is, and he wears it, like an article of clothing. It’s your job to see all of this. You should be ashamed of yourself.  
You let him kiss you. Sweetly. This is how you kiss him, in return. He belongs to Nathaniel, as surely as you do. And if both of you the same master name, in this, there can be no shame. You let him undress you. Amusingly, he seems to have a difficult time with the layers and buttons, in the dark. You will not help him. You stand still, and let yourself be operated upon.  
You let him. You let him kiss you slowly. You feel him give in. Whether it’s to fatigue, or something else, you don’t care. You’d missed being touched softly. Now, Alice only punishes, and you have always taken what she’s given you, but you must admit- it was never your taste. You bloomed with the blush of love. You hungered for its caress. You desired its willing surrender. This, you’ve found in the unlikeliest place of all.  
You begin to wonder. What is Alice’s full reach? She’s in blood, but where else can she dwell? Nathaniel has had Jim. Oh, how he’s had him. Could it be…  
Are you that lucky?  
Could it be true?  
Again, she’s found her way back to you?  
“Alice,” you whisper.  
“What?” Jim says.  
You say her name again, your head falling back. It’s rapturous. It’s then that you know. How could you feel this way, if it weren’t true? You laugh, from deep in your chest, like the cough of sickness.  
It’ll be easier for Jim to pretend that nothing has happened. You don’t mind, keeping his secret. It’s a secret so good that even he doesn’t know it. But you feel her. You feel her in his mouth, his hands. They’re larger and rougher than hers, but you feel and recognize the echoes of her. Once, you were happy.  
Once, you were happy. When she was a child, and you were a child. It was even in a kingdom by the sea. Your parents were dead, and that was a tragedy, but you had each other. On winter mornings, you rose early. You whispered in her ear: “Wake up child, for the wind is wild.” Sleepily, she smiled at you. You smiled right back. Arm-in-arm, you walked on the shore, next to the white-capped sea, watching the waves battle the outcrops of stone that reached out into the sea. Like a hand hanging over the side of the bed, Alice said. You smiled. She was always so good with words. You weren’t. You could learn- but there are some things with which one is just born, and cannot earn.  
Her mouth was soft against yours.  
Jim’s is soft. Have you hypnotized yourself, you wonder. It’s an occupational hazard. This, you learned when you first began to teach yourself. It’s always a danger. If you get too close to something powerful, it can consume you. Jim’s hands are on your hips.  
He looks lost. “What do you want?”  
You gaze into his eyes. “I want that which cannot last. What I want is in the past.”  
He hits you again. Why, this time, you do not know. You look at Nathaniel, now, for the first time, feeling fear.  
You swallow. You close your eyes. You let Jim.  
You let him hit you again. You taste blood. It’s not inappropriate. He kisses it away, like the sea, which takes everything. His mouth is still soft. And you think of Christmas morning. You exchanged presents by the hearth. She was fifteen, and you, twenty-one. When did it begin to turn? You didn’t even notice. It’s in their nature for young women to form transitory attachments, you suppose- but you and Alice were always different. You wouldn’t let this happen. You’d always had a very light touch with her, hadn’t wanted to push. You still don’t want to, but it’s becoming a matter of necessity. It’s not really pushing, anyway, if you’re just setting things right. Alice looks longingly at the attractions of the carnival that visits your town each February. This must be what she wants. She’s bored, you realize with relief that bends into delight, She just wants to have fun. After all, she is young.  
You let Jim fuck you hard. It seems like something he must do, after kissing you softly, touching your face and your body with gentle hands. It’s like two people, of course. Maybe it’s Jim that wants to hit you, make you bleed, but it’s Alice you feel, in Jim’s deeper need. Yes, you say. You arch up into him. You rearrange yourself to suit him. You wrap your legs around him. You let him feel how good it can be. You know that it can be good. You know how good you can make it. Nathaniel wasn’t the first to tell you.  
“Oh, Jesus,” Jim says. How charming. You’ve always found blasphemy amusing. Your parents were church-going people. Not excessive, but devoted. How it must have surprised them, though, to find that both of their children were divine. Alice’s power might have been hidden, but for that, her power was all the stronger. Hidden, secret things are always more potent.  
Knowledge had been early and tacit. Children know when there’s something different about them. Yet, all of you had always felt safe. What mother doesn’t bandage her child’s cut fingers? What father doesn’t soothe his baby’s skinned knees, when teaching her to ride her bicycle? Jervis has theories, but no concrete proof. Some diseases deal in immediate doom. Some, however, require, repeated exposure. It’s a matter of what he’s seen called ‘viral load’. It puts one in mind to the body working to carry it, and at some point, faltering under the burden. No one could have known. That his mother was so jealous. That his father would go so easily to his death. Jervis could imagine, but he couldn’t truly know. He was a child, and Alice was a child, and she had already been crying after walking into a door and bloodying her nose. There had been far too much blood, and at first, he’d thought that his parents were simply agitated by its quantity and hue. Soon, he’d realized that this wasn’t a normal fight. He and Alice hid through the worst. He hadn’t known what else to do. When all was silent, he’d disentangled himself from Alice’s arms, with the firm promise that she was to stay where she was until he returned, surveyed the damage, called the police. Then, he’d held her and held her, to make up for having had to let her go, however briefly. She was all he had left. He was all she had left. He was sixteen, but looked closer to nineteen, tall and strong, and willing to work. No one was interested in breaking up a family. He was declared emancipated, learned his trade at the very carnival that Alice had always adored. She continued to go to school. He walked her there every morning. He waited for her by the gate each afternoon. If he grew to love her even more than he thought possible, who could have foreseen it, and who could have forbidden it?  
You relax into him. His isn’t the body you’re used to, but he feels good. He’s compact but sturdy, and he batters you like the sea against the hand of the shore, drifting into the ocean’s dream. All the while, he kisses you. The blow, softened. You like this. You hold onto him. You cling. Orgasm is the sea, bitterness and bile and salt that tastes less like salt and more like bending down and licking the ground. You shake and twitch in Jim’s arms, and he moans. He pushes hard, and comes inside of you. Breathing heavily, he looks at you, as though he’s woken up in a strange place. You smile. You laugh.  
“What the fuck is so funny?” Jim asks, breathing heavily, still pumping even though it’s over, just to try to punish you.  
But you aren’t here. You’re by the ocean. The winter wind whips your hair into your face, and Alice pushes it back, smiling at you. Her hand in yours is as small and tender as an April flower.  
You move your hips against Jim’s, and though he’s wrung dry, he still reacts.  
Alice is back inside of you. She’s in you both. She’s in the three of you. She’s everywhere.  
How you’d _missed_ her!


End file.
